


The Shy Assassin

by Phantom_Otaku



Category: Assassination Classroom
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Adventure & Romance, Akabane Karma is a Little Shit, Comedy, F/M, Original Character-centric, Science Fiction, Slow Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 03:55:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28824813
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phantom_Otaku/pseuds/Phantom_Otaku
Summary: Jina Kai finds herself being sent to E class, having to spend the rest of her education, or what was left of it, training herself up to assassinate their teacher, who's threatened to blow up their planet. Almost immediately, she's hit by a bump in the road in the shape of a trouble-making, sadist redhead that catches her attention and goes out of his way to make her life a living hell.
Relationships: Akabane Karma/Original Character(s)
Kudos: 8





	1. Assassin Time

**Author's Note:**

> Hey, so I wanted to write the Assassination Classroom series events with my self insert in it. I've had a ton of ideas for this, so I figured it was about time to type it up. It will also contain my friend's self insert as well. It'll mostly focus on my character, Jina Kai. 
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Assassination Classroom or Anya Hirabayashi.

The bell for the end of the period rang, and the odd octopus monster stopped writing on the chalkboard. "Oh? That's lunch everybody," he said, turning away from the board and slithering over to the window. "Excuse me while I pop over to China for a quick bite," he continued as he slid the window open. He turned back to them briefly, holding up one of his tendrils. "You have my cell number, any killers feeling especially trigger happy today are welcome to hit me up." The tendrils on his tentacle curled, almost as if he were forming a fist to show his determination.

With that said, he shot off out the window, sending a shock wave of air through the room that caused all the students to shield themselves with their arms and yell in surprise.

"Okay, math…" a slim blonde named Nakamura near the front trailed off with a soft sigh, cradling her chin in thought. "If he's traveling at Mach twenty…"

"It'll take him ten minutes tops to reach his favorite take-out place in Sichuan," a bluenette, Nagisa, near her finished.

"So just to be clear: We've absolutely ruled out missiles?" another boy with scruffy, orange-brown hair by the name of Maehara spoke up.

"Are you kidding? Even if we had access to that kind of hardware, he can break the sound barrier," Isogai pointed out.

"While grading!" Nakamura added with a wave of her hand for emphasis.

"My homework even came back with a doodle on it," Isogai mentioned, thinking back to the other day.

"Y'know, all things considered, he's not doing a bad job," the blonde pointed out.

A girl with dirty-blonde hair, who sat at the end of the row closest to the windows, thought to herself, " _That's the understatement of the century. Then again, not any stiff competition at this school._ "

"I know, right?" Hinano spoke up. "He tutored me in Algebra, and I killed it on our pop quiz the next day!"

"Yeah, kind of a shame. We get our grades up just in time for the world to end," Mimura added pessimistically, a sort of sour, lopsided smile on his face.

The dirty-blonde girl sighed to herself and reached into her bag for a book, manga to be specific. The conversation had lost its interest. After all, they had talked a lot over the past few days about how they were going to kill him, but they always seemed to go in the same direction.

Before she had even cracked the manga open, her brunette friend, Anya Hirabayashi, leaned over her desk to peer at the cover. "Finally!" she said abruptly, startling the dirty-blonde, after seeing that it was the series she had suggested to her last year. "I thought you were never going to give it a shot, Jina."

"Sorry, I was a bit busy with this whole assassination thing and being sent to E class," the now-named Jina replied flatly. "Besides, I already watched the first season of the anime."

Anya gave her a confused stare but didn't bother with asking why her friend was reading about something she had already watched. Instead, she opted to start a conversation about their tentacled teacher. "So any clue on how we might kill him before the year is over?"

"I don't know. It seems kinda impossible," the dirty-blonde spoke up, shutting the manga and pulling her knife out. "Not like they're helping by throwing us in and expecting us to sort it out on our own."

Whatever the thing was, it was impressive for sure, but no new information on him had popped up since they were given the assignment to kill him. All they knew was the weapons they were given were capable of harming him, and that the odds were stacked against them. His list of strengths far outweighed the list of weaknesses, and just about everyone in class lacked any skill in gun and knife play.

She opened the manga back up and stared blankly at the first page, her mind wandering too much for her to focus. She thought back to the first day of school when this information was dumped on them. They didn't even have time to be shocked that their teacher was the thing that blew up the moon before the responsibility of being the assassins to kill him was placed on them. Some guy, Karasuma if she remembered correctly, had come to give them the rundown on everything. In her opinion, he seemed far more qualified to kill their teacher than any of them, even if he never actually landed a strike on the octopus.

The starting notes she had taken on their teacher were nothing special. All she had was his basic strengths and weaknesses, and not much had been added since the first day of school. He changed colors depending on his emotions, but that was the only thing Jina had learned over the last few days. It was frustrating how little they knew about their teacher.

The bell rang once more, ending the lunch period. Not long after, their tentacled teacher slithered through the door followed by Nagisa.

The bluenette took his seat while their teacher began writing on the chalkboard. Finally, when he was done, he turned to them with squiggling tentacles and said, "Okie Dokie! Your assignment this afternoon is to compose a short poem. The final line should read, 'was tentacles all along.'"

Jina quirked a brow in confusion while the rest of her classmates voiced their's through a collective cry of, "What?" She loved English, but she wasn't a big fan of the restrictions he put on their writing assignments sometimes.

A girl with long dark hair and light brown eyes, Kanzaki, raised her hand while the rest of the class gave the octopus funny looks. "Excuse me, sir. Really?"

"Really!" he replied in earnest. "When you've completed the assignment, kindly bring it forward. You will be graded on creativity, grammar, and overall beauty of expression." He emphasized the 'and' with a raise of one of his tendrils. "Here's an example: Not the storm of garden's snow of flowers moving on, but sprouting there instead was tentacles all along."

"Yeah, because that makes a whole lot of sense. Sheesh," Isogai muttered, resting his head in his hand.

"You may go home once you're finished," the teacher added, shocking everyone in the room. He wasn't serious, was he? Sure, she could come up with something without much difficulty, but it still sounded absurd.

"What? But, sir!" Hinano started. "'Was tentacles all along?'" she repeated, at a loss.

"Should get those li'l synapses sparking and the imagination slithering!" he went on, his own slithering tentacles being held up for emphasis. He wriggled them faster, making a sputtering noise as if they didn't already have their own sound effects. For someone who wanted to destroy the world, he was very silly. Not quite villain material in her opinion.

"Will you stop that?!" Maehara snapped comedically from his seat in the front, annoyed by the noise.

"Um, sir? Question!" Kayano called from the front, raising her hand.

"Huh? Of course! Fire away, Kayano!" the octopus replied, turning his bulbous head in her direction.

"Do we always have to call you sir? You haven't given us your name and I think we need one," she said, feeling awkward having to always call him sir. "I mean it'd be kinda awkward if we don't call you anything, right?"

"Ah. Well, now…" he started slowly, still staring in Kayano's direction like he was lost.

Jina heard two students ahead say something about an oversight on their part. Kaede had been right. In the few days he had been teaching them, not once did she realize that he didn't have a proper name to be called by.

"Hmm… Trouble is, I don't have the sort of name you just give to people," he admitted, scratching his head with one of his tendrils, raising a few questions in Jina's head as to why. "Why not pick one for me?"

The dirty-blonde stared at the octopus teacher incredulously, knowing this wouldn't go well. A group of third-year middle-schoolers naming something? Never ended well.

It seemed Maehara agreed, muttering sarcastically, "What could go wrong?"

"Just focus on meter and syntax," the tentacled teacher replied, putting an end to the name discussion for the time being.

"M'kay," the green-haired girl chimed, going back to her work.

"I'll take a short break while you take up your pens," he said in a voice halfway between a yawn as he took a seat on the stool in front of the class, his skin turning noticeably pink.

Kai didn't get started on her work and instead looked over his features before taking out her notebook dedicated specifically to him. She went to the first page and noted down the color and its meaning.

The girl looked up from her notebook, noticing that the bluenette was walking up to their teacher with his poem in hand. Something about it felt off, but she wasn't quite sure why. The answer presented itself when Nagisa suddenly pulled a knife and struck at their teacher, who caught his hand in the nick of time. "What did I say about thinking outside the box?" he scolded, taking the knife from the boy with a napkin to avoid injury.

Without answering, the bluenette leaned into the octopus, like he was going to hug him. There was a yelp of surprise from their teacher for a reason that none of them knew, and that's when Terasaka stood from his desk, pressing a button on a hand-held remote. An explosion shook the room, and anti-sensei BB's were sent flying in all directions, causing most of the students to scream and duck.

Still covering her head, Jina could hear Terasaka and his group cheering, and she guessed they were in on the plan. Sitting back up, she saw the smoke throughout the room and scowled at the elated perpetrators. Were they really already desperate enough to attempt a suicide bomb? And were they really going to celebrate before ensuring their classmate's safety?

"You jerks!" Isogai yelled, glaring at them as they made their way up to the front of the room where a mass of black tentacles lay.

"What the hell have you done?!" Maehara followed up, looking equally as pissed as his friend.

Terasaka, Yoshida, and Muramatsu ignored the both of them, not letting their classmates' shock and disapproval spoil their celebration. "Hah! Never saw a suicide bomber comin', did ya?" the boy gloated to what they all assumed to be their teacher's corpse on the floor.

"Terasaka!" Kaede cried angrily, standing up from her desk with a frown. "What'd you make Nagisa do?!"

"What? I'm sorry, you have a better idea?" he asked sarcastically, still showing no signs of remorse for his actions. "I gave him a modified toy grenade filled with those stupid BB's. And a spoonful or two of gunpowder so they'd scatter at a high enough speed."

Jina glared hard at the boy, disgust written on her face. "Bastard," she grumbled, gritting her teeth.

"Don't worry, it wasn't enough to kill anybody," Terasaka went on nonchalantly. He squatted down next to the supposed corpse, a broad smile across his face. "I'll pitch in on his medical bills." Suddenly, his smile disappeared and was replaced with a perplexed expression when he saw what was really on the floor. "Huh...?"

Now that the smoke had cleared, they could all see Nagisa on the floor, covered over by something that looked like plastic wrap but tinted yellow with the BB's sprinkled over it.

"Whoa. He doesn't even have a mark on him," Terasaka said, astounded. He frowned, sweat clearly on his face as he grabbed the odd material that covered his classmate. "And what the hell is this membrane? Did the body, like-?"

"It's not a body, it's a husk," the voice of their tentacled teacher said firmly. The group of perpetrators all began to sweat, looking around the room nervously. Kai, as well as the rest of her classmates, began searching the room as well, unsure where the voice was coming from. "I shed my skin once a month." Nagisa sat up, the skin breaking rather easily and sinking back to the floor. "I wrapped it around your classmate to protect him from the blast." His tone sounded scarily calm yet held fury in it, so much so that the dirty-blonde felt a chill run down her spine.

Terasaka looked up towards the ceiling, finding their teacher stuck to it. The octopus's eyes glowed red and his skin began to dull and turn grey. "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and assume you didn't see this coming," he went on in a dark tone. Everyone stared up at their teacher in shock as they got their first glimpse at just how terrifying he could be. "Terasaka. Yoshida. Muramatsu." His tone alone made the room feel darker as if he were spelling doom for those he named. By now, everyone in the class was staring at their teacher in horror, whimpering fearfully.

" _Haven't seen that face before, and I'm not sure I want to see it more than once_ ," Jina thought to herself fearfully as their teacher's face pulled into a dreadful snarl, showing his teeth that were now pointed.

He growled as his eyes turned into dark slits just above his mouth. "This was your doing. Wasn't it?!" he boomed, his head twitching as if he would snap at them and tear them to piece at any moment.

The three boys nearly shook with fear, all three visibly drenched with sweat and wracked with terror. "Who…? Us…?" Yoshida squeaked.

"It was all Nagisa!" Terasaka lied in a shaky voice, all his confidence and swagger gone.

The octopus disappeared, kicking up a mass of wind as he went. Everyone screamed and by the time it was over, he was back, causing another shock wave to rip through the room. There was a clattering noise as something was thrown to the floor behind the boys, making them turn around.

"The nameplate off my house!" Terasaka cried, seeing his on the floor along with Muramatsu's and Yoshida's.

"Here's the deal, kiddos," their teacher started, still in that menacing tone. "The agreement I have with your government forbids me from harming you. But there's a catch." He held up a nameplate from the pile, one that spelled Shiota. "If you pull another irresponsible stunt like that again… There's nothing that says I can't harm someone else." He let the rest of the nameplate's clatter to the floor, showing the various names of the students and effectively striking fear into all of them. "Family… Friends… Everyone in the world except for you, if I feel like it." For once, his mouth opened and his teeth separated, making him appear far more monster-like and making his promise all the more genuine.

Jina stared at her own nameplate on the floor right next to Ani and Anya's with horror. All three friends were drained of color and shocked by the complete personality change. Now, _this_ was what they expected a planet-destroying monster to act like.

"Go on! Threaten us!" Terasaka pointed towards the octopus, his voice cracking and betraying his tough-guy act. "I ain't afraid of no squid! Where do you get off blowing up the moon? We got rights, you know! Call us irresponsible! We're just defending ourselves!"

Suddenly, his skin turned orange, a red circle in the middle of it. "Of course. I know that," he said, now in his normal, kind, and understanding voice. "I'm not calling you irresponsible for trying to kill me. No, no, no." He placed his tendrils on Nagisa's head, ruffling his hair with them lovingly. "As a matter of fact, Nagisa here gets full marks for technique. His composure was simply outstanding. However!" he started, pointing one of his tendrils at the group of boys and causing them to flinch. "None of you cared if he was injured." All three looked down at the floor, now seemingly ashamed of themselves. "Not even Nagisa himself, it seems. Students with that attitude aren't fit to assassinate anyone," the octopus stated as his face turned purple with a darker purple x in the center, a few veins visibly popping out of his head, for further emphasis.

It returned to normal as he faced the rest of the class. "You must believe yourself worthy of your target. That means taking pride in what you do, in yourselves, and each other. All of you are more than the sum of your parts," he finished reassuringly, wagging a tentacle like someone would their finger.

The tentacled teacher put out a small smoking section of the desk with his tentacle before he turned to Nagisa. "Here's a puzzler for you, Nagisa. Given that I have no intention of being killed." His bulbous head turned suddenly to address the whole of the class. "Though, of course, I have every intention of enjoying our time together before the planet goes kerplooey. What, exactly, are you going to do about it?"

Jina's gaze drifted down to the green knife in her lap as his words sunk in. When this mission was given to them, she felt like she couldn't do it, and she still felt that way but… less so.

* * *

"Geez, man! You scared the crap out of me," Sugino said as he stretched his arms behind his head with an awkward smile while he followed the bluenette and Kayano out of the rundown school building. "Do me a favor and don't try another suicide bomb."

"Yeah, I was really scared there for a minute," Kaede added with a relieved smile.

Nagisa sighed, giving the two a guilty, lop-sided smile while he rubbed the back of his neck. "I know. It was pretty reckless, but I thought it was worth a shot. I mean, they said those BB's won't hurt us, right?"

"Hey, Nagisa!" a voice called out, making the group of three stop in their tracks. They turned towards the voice to see Jina, standing back near the entrance to the building with her usual stoic expression on her face despite the events that had gone down. She held something that looked like a magazine in her hands close to her chest.

"Woah, she can talk!" Kayano muttered in shock. She had been so quiet Kaede was beginning to think she was mute.

"Oh! Uh… hey," the bluenette returned awkwardly, having been caught off guard.

"I wanted to talk to you," she continued, still showing no visible emotion. "Alone if that's okay."

Nagisa exchanged glances with his two friends. "You guys can go ahead. I'll catch up," he said, motioning towards the path down the mountain. Sugino gave a last glance at his friend as he and Kayano walked away and left Nagisa and Jina alone. "So why'd you want to talk to me?" Nagisa started as he stopped in front of her.

Now that he was so much closer, the dirty-blonde seemed to get a little nervous, averting her eyes to anyplace except for Nagisa and fidgeting with the magazine she held. "Well, I just wanted to ask if you were alright after what happened today," she admitted.

The bluenette quirked a brow at her sudden behavior. Not that he had interacted with her much, but he hadn't seen her be this way before. All she'd ever done was ignore everyone except for the girl who sat next to her and read her manga. Anytime someone tried to talk to her, they were usually given a short response, so this new behavior didn't fit what he had come to expect from her at all. "I'm fine. The BB's couldn't make it through the skin, I guess," he assured with a wave of his hand and a smile.

"That's not what I mean," she said, earning a confused look from the bluenette. Her grip on the paper she held tightened a bit. "I mean, I wanted to know if there was something else going on that you needed to talk about. Something that may have pushed you into the suicide bomb," Jina continued a bit quietly. She didn't want to throw out accusations, but she couldn't help but be worried with how little he seemed to care about his own safety.

Nagisa blinked blankly at her for a moment before it clicked. "Oh! No, it's nothing like that at all!" the bluenette denied, holding his hands up in front of him. "I just thought it was worth a shot. It was the first solid idea we'd had, and we haven't exactly made a lot of progress with our assassination."

The dirty-blonde let out a sigh of relief, and she visibly relaxed a bit, though her grip on the paper was still firm. "Good," was all she replied with. There was a short silence between them with Jina making no efforts to continue the conversation.

"Y'know, I'm a bit surprised you came to talk to me," Nagisa admitted, trying to break the awkward silence between them.

The girl cast her eyes down to the ground and picked at the magazine nervously again. "I'm not much for conversation."

The bluenette looked closer at the paper she kept fidgeting with and noticed something. "Hey, isn't that an issue of Sonic Ninja?" he pointed towards it.

The dirty-blonde glanced down at the issue before nodding. "Yeah. I wanted to catch up on the series."

Nagisa came closer, grabbing the comic to peer at the cover. "Issue fifteen's pretty good. A lot of questions finally get answered, too," he commented after seeing the cover. "I kinda never expected you to be into this kind of stuff. I never even thought you'd come talk to me."

She quirked a brow at him. "Why's that?"

"Well, you always seem so serious, and you kinda look annoyed whenever someone tries to talk to you," the bluenette admitted hesitantly, looking to the ground and rubbing the back of his neck.

Jina looked down to the ground, and her expression turned a bit downcast. Sighing, she started, "I'm really not the best when I'm in an unfamiliar place. When I'm put in a new place with new people, I just… need time to adjust before I can really socialize with anyone I don't know."

Nagisa blinked. "So you're just shy?"

"Yeah, I guess you could say that," she shrugged. Socially awkward was a better word, but she wasn't about to correct him. "I hope no one got the wrong idea. I really didn't mean to come off that way."

"No need to be so blue! Just make an effort to appear more approachable to your classmates!" their tentacled teacher interrupted as he appeared beside them in a flash, making both of them jump. "It would benefit you greatly to work with others in this classroom," he added, twirling a pen in his tendrils. "Alone, none of you stand a chance at assassinating me by the end of the century, let alone the end of the year!"

"Wow, that's encouraging," Jina muttered sarcastically to herself.

The two bid their teacher goodbye and started off down the mountain. They walked in silence, which seemed to be okay with both, while the dirty-blonde mulled over her teacher's words. As much as she hated it, he was right. None of them had a prayer alone, so she'd have to suck it up and be more social.


	2. Baseball Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Second chapter, here we go.
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Assassination Classroom or Anya Hirabayashi.

Sugino and Nagisa stood at the edge of the woods in front of the rundown school building. Sugino held a baseball embedded with BB's while the bluenette beside him had his notebook out. They had maybe ten minutes until the first bell, but they couldn't start the attempt without the third member.

"Are you sure she's coming?" Tomohito asked, glancing around impatiently for any sign of the girl. He had the feeling she might have bailed on the idea and not said anything to Nagisa.

"Of course," the bluenette replied assuredly. "She's the one who said she wanted to help when she overheard."

"Any idea what she wants to do? I thought we already had everything planned out," the other boy asked as he tossed the ball up and caught it.

"I'm going to watch the attempt and see if there's anything I can get out of it," Jina answered, appearing from nowhere and startling the both of them. "Nagisa and I will write notes on our target. That way they can be useful to the whole class. We plan to take notes in our own style, too, so there'll be a safety net. If one of us doesn't write something down, there's a chance the other will." The dirty-blonde looked down at her own small notebook, decorated with a title in messy marker and various stickers of characters. "It's not much, but I think it'll be worth it in the long run. He has to have more weaknesses, and he can't keep them hidden forever."

Sugino was quiet for a moment, eyes a bit wide, as he observed the girl's demeanor. Though her expression remained impassive as usual, her features seemed much softer and made her look more approachable. He also noticed that she now wore her blazer unbuttoned, giving the impression that she was more laid-back. "Uh, that's a smart way of thinking," he managed to say after realizing he was staring. "Now we just need him to reveal something worth writing down."

"He will. The longer we're around him, the more we'll learn. Assassination attempts will help, too, since we'll see his abilities and weaknesses in action," the dirty-blonde pointed out.

"And we should make our attempt soon. The bell for first period is going to ring in just a few minutes," Nagisa reminded.

Sugino nodded, lifting the anti-BB studded baseball. "Let's go before we miss our chance." The group entered the woodline and not far into it, they found Korosensei in his favorite spot. A nice place with the perfect amount of sun and shade with relative quiet. A perfect place to grade papers, come up with personalized tests for his students, or for just relaxing before class.

Hidden behind a few trees that surrounded Korosensei's little clearing, the three eyed him as he read from a newspaper that appeared to be in English. "There he is," Sugino said in a quiet voice as he peered at the target from around the tree. "Chillin' out back before first bell, not a care in the world. Readin' a Hawaiian newspaper casually picked up from Hawaii on the way here." He turned to smile at the bluenette. "Nice. Good work, Nagisa. Thanks, I owe you one."

Jina looked down at her own notebook. As of now, it was pretty sparse on notes. The only ones she had currently were the few she had taken herself and some Nagisa had shared with her to get her up to speed. Either way, right now she felt useless.

"You're welcome," Nagisa nodded at Tomohito. "Best of luck, Sugino." The dirty-blonde snapped herself back to attention. If she was going to be helpful in the future, she'd need to actually observe this and future attempts.

The boy chuckled. "Ten billion big, here I come," he replied confidently, holding up the ball. He got into position for a standard fastball throw and chucked it as hard as he could at his target.

As the ball closed in on their teacher's head, he suddenly appeared behind the three, greeting them, "Top of the mornin' to ya!" All three gasped but said nothing at his sudden appearance. "It's usually considered polite to reply."

Looking to the chair he had been lounging in, there was still a dust cloud clearing from his takeoff. Sugino sputtered, looking between the chair and his teacher while Nagisa replied quickly, "Uh… Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Good morning, sir."

"A baseball embedded with government-issued anti-me BB's? Creative! Points for choosing a method of delivery quieter than the pop of a standard air rifle. Unfortunately… Once airborne, the weapon gave me nothing but time. Ample opportunity, in fact, to organize a defensive maneuver. A quick visit to the equipment room, and, ta-da! I had, pardon the pun, a handy solution." He held up one of his tentacles to show a baseball mitt and the baseball smoking in the glove.

All three groaned, staring at the glove in shock.

"Tick-tock, children," he said, his face gaining green stripes as he tossed the ball up and down. "Graduation will be here before you know it." He began to slither off in the direction of the rundown school building. "Right, then. Homeroom, if you would please," he said as the bell for first rang in the distance.

Sugino slouched his shoulders and sighed with disappointment, "Yes, sir." Nagisa and Jina looked back to their friend, a tad worried. "Damn it. Well, so much for my fastball. Big shock there, I guess."

"It was a good throw," Nagisa said, trying to cheer him up.

"Don't be so depressed," Jina spoke up. "He can reach Mach twenty. Your throw wasn't bad. He was just too fast."

Despite their attempts, their words hadn't seemed to have helped his mood much at all. He sighed, beginning to walk in the direction Korosensei had gone, "Let's just get to class."

* * *

The dirty-blonde sat at her desk, following along in the book as their teacher read the passage aloud. It was pretty hard to keep her attention on the book when the morning's failed attempt was still fresh on her mind.

"Hey, Jina," Anya whispered into her friend's ear. "I heard the plan didn't go well."

She sighed, "Yeah, it was a bust. All it did was reinforce what we've already been told: that he's unkillable."

"Really? Nothing new?" the brunette quirked her head to the side.

"Just that he's too fast for anything airborne to be useful against him." Jina opened her small notebook to finish jotting down her notes and add an official name to the class target: Korosensei. Kayano had suggested it. Not a bad name. Unkillable teacher fit him well. "I don't know why, but Sugino's bothered by it, too," she added as she glanced up at the boy just a few seats in front of her.

"I wonder why," Anya rubbed her chin in thought. "It's not like we're going to get this right off the bat. Trained professionals couldn't put a scratch on him."

"I don't think it's the failed attempt that's got him down," she mentioned, already forming an idea as to why he might be taking this harder than he should.

There was a sudden gust of wind throughout the classroom as Korosensei sped to the back, snatched something from someone's desk, and went back to the front where he now held an open notebook up to his face. "Sugaya!" he called in an angry tone as his eyes seemed to glow with what they assumed was rage. "Not a bad likeness, I'll give you that, but I'm a little hurt by the jawline," he continued, the spark and assumed anger disappearing in favor of his usual look, as he turned the notebook around to show Sugaya's drawing, which now had another drawing overtop in red.

"You don't have a jaw!" Maehara exclaimed.

* * *

Soon enough, the lunch bell was chiming, signaling the end of the period. "That's lunch, people. If you'll excuse me, I have some important off-campus business to attend to," Korosensei said as he slithered over to the window.

"Tofu from China?" Isogai guessed.

"Actually…" Korosensei turned his head to look back at the class as he used a tentacle to pull the window open. "I'm going to catch a ball game in The Big Apple. Ciao!" He took off, creating another much stronger gust of wind that made everyone cry out in surprise.

Once the dust had cleared from the room, Jina let her body relax. "He needs to stop doing that," she muttered, annoyed. It seemed like he enjoyed almost giving them heart attacks every time he left to go to some other place halfway across the globe.

A few others muttered their complaints as well

"He sure knows how to make an exit," Yoshida grumbled from his desk.

"I know! That thing's starting to get on my nerves," Terasaka agreed, glaring at the window he had left from.

"Talk about unfair," Hinano thought aloud as she packed her things away. "We're stuck here while he flies all over the world. He could at least bring souvenirs."

Meg stopped in front of Hinano's desk, her bag slung over her shoulder. "Think about what he'd probably bring back: are you that hard-up for a mortar shell?" she joked.

"I'm just sayin' an exotic snack would be nice," she clarified with a smile. "It's not like he has to sneak 'em through customs."

"You've dedicated a lot of thought to this," Meg grinned, a little surprised.

" _That's… common sense,_ " Jina thought to herself as she zipped her own bag up. She tuned out the rest of the conversation, only hearing bits and pieces about New York's chief export and the pervert kid going wild at the thought of hot New York girls.

As she stood from her desk, the conversation among them stopped when Mr. Karasuma entered the classroom.

"Oh. Mr. Karasuma," Isogai greeted weakly, too surprised to say much else.

"Children. Any progress on killing the tentacled menace?" he said, not bothering to waste time on formalities.

"Define progress," Nagisa replied from where he was near Karasuma. The rest of the students sighed, some turning to look down at the floor or their desks. They all knew that they hadn't done much of anything yet. They had tried the standard stuff, stabbing, shooting, even a more creative baseball kill, and nothing had come close.

" _Wish they'd actually teach us how to use this stuff_ ," Jina thought as she looked down at her knife, feeling far more annoyed at how little was being done to help them. " _If they can give us these weapons, then they can give us someone who knows how to use them too._ "

"This is E Class, yo," Kirara was the first to speak, leaning back in her chair. "You gotta lower your expectations."

"All due respect, sir. He's too quick," Isogai said.

"Like so quick you can't even see him sometimes," Mimura added, laying his head on his desk.

"You said so yourself: he tops out at Mach Twenty," Okajima reminded. "How do we kill something like that?"

"I don't know," the man answered honestly. "But you kids had better figure it out."

The dirty-blonde frowned at that. " _Why're we expected to figure things out? We're junior high kids with no experience in assassination or killing in general!_ "

It seemed the rest agreed. "Seriously?" Okajima asked, hoping he wasn't serious.

"Seriously," he nodded, pointing at the class. "You're the only hope we've got. He teaches willingly. Putting himself in the line of fire by choice." The students groaned, finally being told what they had already known.

" _That'd be a lot more honorable if he couldn't dodge the line of fire with ease_ ," the dirty-blonde thought with a heavy sigh.

"If we allow that creature to live, come March, Earth will be totally annihilated," Karasuma reminded. "And, in case you need a reminder of how powerful he is, take a look at what's left of our moon. That'll be our planet in a year. In short, he's too dangerous to take lightly. That's why this classroom is the last stand between mankind and extinction."

The entire class was silent and solemn after his speech. The consequences of failure were something that had been in the back of their heads, but it wasn't something any of them liked to dwell on or say out loud.

" _We're not demotivated. We've got every reason in the world to want him dead. We've got the tools, now we just need someone to teach us how to use them_ ," she thought, finding herself irritated by just how far off his assumption was. " _Teach us and we'll gladly play hero like you're asking, even if it means we've got to learn about our target on top of our subjects._ "

* * *

It was later into the lunch period. By now, Karasuma had left and the heavy tone he had brought with him had left, too.

Jina sat at her desk, rereading the little notes she had on Korosensei again, as everyone else chattered among themselves while they ate lunch. She had added more and fleshed out her notes on the attempt, but it still wasn't much. Not ideal notes for killing. She gripped her pencil hard with frustration. " _If only we could find a chink in his armor. Something to exploit._ "

She sighed, closing the book and giving up for now. No point in stressing over it. That never helped. The dirty-blonde got up from her seat and headed for the door right after Nagisa. " _Maybe some fresh air will help_."

"Need to make sure these get turned in," Nagisa muttered to himself, having not noticed her. He stopped abruptly and looked back at the window, unsure if his eyes were playing tricks on him. Confused, Jina looked out the window, too, and was only more confused when she saw Sugino and Korosensei sitting on the steps outside. The confusion quickly turned to horror when the tentacled teacher suddenly took hold of the student and lifted him into the air. "Holy crap. He's ticked off he tried to kill him!"

Nagisa took off down the hall to the open door with Jina right at his heels. She gasped after she could see more clearly that Sugino was tangled up in Korosensei's tentacles, one of which was in his mouth to muffle his screams as another was used to twist his leg in a way that she was sure it wasn't supposed to.

"Please, sir! Don't do this!" Nagisa pleaded as he ran down the steps.

"You know we have no choice in this!" Jina added from right behind him.

"Huh?" he looked at the two out of the corner of his eye.

"He was just doing what he had to!" Nagisa continued to appeal to the octopus. "The deal was you couldn't hurt any of us!"

Their tentacled teacher chuckled, "There it is." Sugino stopped struggling and his muffled cries stopped. "I thought I recognized that pitching style. You were imitating major-league pitcher Arita." There was a muffled gasp of shock from Tomohito.

"That's right," Korosensei started as he lowered the boy down to the ground. "These tentacles don't lie." Said tentacles unraveled from the boy's body and returned to the octopus. "Your shoulders are significantly less flexible than your idol's, I'm afraid."

Sugino frowned and his eyes narrowed. "What're you trying to say?"

"That the famous Arita fastball that you were trying so hard to copy… is simply never going to be your thing," the teacher said bluntly.

Both boys gasped, Sugino's from shock and disappointment, and Nagisa's from their teacher's cold delivery. "That's not fair," the bluenette said, clenching a fist at his side and hiding his eyes with his bangs. "You don't know. How could you? That's ridiculous. You can't just…" His fist shook as he struggled for the right words.

"Look, don't worry about it," Sugino glanced up at his friend, now a little worried.

Jina raised a brow at Nagisa's change in demeanor. This had to go deeper than Sugino not being able to copy Arita's fastball.

"I get it. Why even bother? Hey, we're just E Class, right?" The bluenette suddenly snapped his head up to reveal angry eyes. "We're just a bunch of losers and lost causes!" Sugino sighed softly, letting his gaze return to the ground as he seemed to agree with Nagisa's words.

She couldn't believe what she was hearing. " _...Are you kidding me?_ " she thought, her expression going flat. " _I knew this was a sensitive subject, but c'mon!_ "

"You misunderstand me. I base this entirely on firsthand experience," Korosensei said, reaching into his robes for something. "First-through-eighth-hand experience!" He pulled out a newspaper with the heading "Tentacles Attack," and an image of Arita tangled up in his tentacles that were bursting from the pitcher's mound.

"What is wrong with you?!" all three cried, shocked to see that he had spent most of his lunch period harassing a baseball star.

"I even got his autograph!" the octopus blubbered, a steady stream of tears pouring out of his beady eyes as he held up a sign with, "Knock it off, Tentacles! - Arita" written across it.

"You actually asked him for an autograph after you assaulted him?!" the bluenette asked in disbelief.

"Unbelievable, right?" he sniffled. "He was so nice about it!"

"He's right, though," Sugino finally agreed while their teacher continued to weep about the autograph, catching Nagisa's and Jina's attention. "Some of us are born with talent, some of us, not so much." Oddly enough, he had a small smile on his face, like accepting it was easier now than it was earlier.

Korosensei's sobs stopped abruptly. "Talent is relative." His tentacles reached out for Sugino's arm and began to turn his hand and arm in order to judge their flexibility. "Arita's wrists and elbows aren't as flexible as yours. Like I said, these tentacles don't lie. Given enough time and practice, you could become just as good a player, if not better. And besides, why settle for being an imitation?" he finished by placing his free tentacle on Tomohito's shoulder reassuringly. His tentacles slithered back to him as he turned away to go back into the building. "Next time, try assassinating me in your own style."

The boy held up his hand so that he could look at it. "More flexible, huh? I never realized." He reached up to bend the hand in surprisingly far, much further than most could. "How 'bout that. My own style," he smiled, already thinking of possibilities.

Their teacher glided up the steps and into the building, and soon, Nagisa followed. Jina remained by Sugino, lost in her thoughts again. She finally had something new to add to her notes and a teacher who cared about his students.

* * *

Over the next few days, Sugino developed a new pitching style all of his own, and soon enough, he was pitching balls so fast Nagisa couldn't catch them anymore. Whether it be test throws to Nagisa to adjust the strategy or practice the pitch or a few test shots Korosensei himself, Jina was at the sidelines, noting down any information about the target and her classmate. Information on her peers could be just as valuable when it came to forming strategies.

Early one morning, Jina was making her way up the path to the rundown school building and much to her confusion saw two of the girls instructing and berating Korosensei by the flowerbed as he planted more bulbs into the dirt. Thankfully, Nagisa, Kayano, and Sugino were gathered in front of the main doors. "What happened?" she asked as she got up to the group.

"Korosensei used the tulips in the flowerbed to make a point, and he didn't know the girls planted them last year," Nagisa supplied simply, handing his notebook over to her so she could review. That was another part of their deal. If one of them got notes, then they'd share the new information with the other.

She hummed, reading the sentence over, "Good to know there's something we can take advantage of. This could actually be useful."

"Really?" Sugino gave her a dubious look.

"Yeah. On its own, it's not much, but over time we'll learn more stuff like this. Little things we can pile on in plans that could overwhelm him and do him in," she nodded, handing it back to Nagisa.

"Guess that makes sense," he admitted with a shrug. "Can't help but wonder how many more 'little things' we'll need to kill him, though."

"There! Fresh bulbs for next season," Korosensei announced as he finished pouring water over the bed. "Again, I'm terribly sorry! Since I can't make the flowers bloom right now, I've got another way to make it up to all of you." The octopus sped off and everyone yelped at the sudden rush of wind. Before it was over he had returned by the nearest tree, which now had rope tied to one of its high branches and the other end tied around him. "I won't do this very often, but I'll make an exception since it was my mistake." To his surprise, no one moved. Instead, they stared at him, confused and likely not believing him. "What're you waiting for? I've hindered my mobility! Anyone who's feeling lucky can come take a shot!"

It clicked with the students that he wasn't just teasing them and almost all at once, the class rushed over and began trying to hit him with their knives. Jina was the only one who wasn't taking jabs at him, preferring to observe. Everyone took swings and jabs at the octopus, which he dodged with relative ease. Some attempted to climb the tree to have a better chance at hitting him, but all they achieved was getting Korosensei to keep his distance from the trunk. A few were using their guns, but those didn't do much either. Even the small distance the BB's had to close gave him enough time to avoid them. "Damn, even with his movements restricted he's still dodging attacks like they're nothing," the dirty-blonde cursed, jotting down information regardless. She had gathered that he cared about his reputation among the students, and that would be very useful.

"Hey, Kayano. Weren't there some bamboo sticks in the supply closet?" Nagisa asked. "We could use those to get a better reach."

"Oh yeah!" she remembered. "I'll go get them." She turned and ran off in the direction of the building, and a few minutes of watching the others try and fail to hit him, she can skipping back, an armful of bamboo sticks in hand and Mr. Karasuma following her. She set the bamboo down on the ground for the other students but kept one for herself. "Is he totally the coolest teacher ever, or what?!" she spoke to Mr. K, tying her knife to the end of her piece of bamboo while the others had already gone back at taking jabs at the octopus with their pieces of bamboo as well.

"A few more minutes of this and all is forgiven, right?" Korosensei spoke, not stopping in his rapid movement to avoid damage. Of course, his face had gained green stripes just seconds after it all began. "You're a very lucky class, I'll have you know; not many teachers would put themselves in this position."

"Most teachers aren't giant yellow octopus out to blow up the planet,"

"So uh, any luck yet?" Kayano asked a tad awkwardly, her bamboo-knife in hand.

"Uh… no," he replied slowly, holding his gun at an odd angle, having given up. He had taken a few shots, but it hadn't done any good. None had landed, as expected. "This is pretty much all a game to him."

Mr. Karasuma sighed irritably, his eye twitching slightly, "This is not what the Ministry of Defense has in mind."

"Wait, hang on a minute," Nagisa said, digging something out of his back pocket. "There's bound to be a corresponding weakness."

"If he lets his ego go to his head, something bad is bound to happen," Jina added, glancing over her own notes. Like Nagisa had said, when Korosensei showed off, things tended to go south for him, much like it would for any show-off.

The tentacled teacher let out an almost maniacal sounding laugh while the group underneath him jabbed and shot fruitlessly, "Shoot and stab all you want, class! Even with this handicap, I am too fast for you! Only in your dreams do you have any hope of getting the deed done-" There was a resounding snap as the branch he had tied himself to gave way and he fell to the ground with a thud and a grunt.

Everyone froze in place and groaned, unsure of what to think. All at once, most of the class rushed in on him, shouting, "Kill him!"

"Wait, wait, wait! This isn't part of the deal!" Korosensei yelped as he squirmed desperately against his bindings, rolling to avoid the BB's and knives that were thrown his way. He muttered curses as he narrowly avoided the attacks.

"Well, your notes are bound to come in handy at some point," Kayano said optimistically.

"Right! That's why I'm jotting everything down," Nagisa agreed.

"I hope so," the dirty-blonde said, adding the newfound weakness to her own notes. It was what she had been looking for this whole time. An actual weakness. Something to give them hope that this unkillable creature was actually killable.

"My tentacles are all tangled up in the ropes! This isn't what I had in mind!" the octopus shouted, struggling to get free of the rope while also dodging all the bullets and knives being mercilessly hurled at him. "Stop it, stop it all of you! Stop it, stop it, stop it!" he cried, finally slipping free of the rope and sending himself up into the air where they couldn't reach.

"Hey, get back down here!" Okajima demanded.

" _Not good at keeping a cool head… Or even trying to put on a front of keeping his cool,_ " the dirty-blonde thought as she wrote the information down. " _Good. Gives us more to exploit._ "

Korosensei landed on top of the rundown building, holding his tentacles up as if he had been victorious. "Ha-ha! What's the matter, children? Can't jump this high? Oh, wait, of course not!" He let out a series of laughs, further irritating the students below.

"Aw, man! We were so close!" Kimura moaned.

Korosensei continued to laugh until he was panting and finally he stopped with a sigh, wiping his face with a tentacle. "Guess who's earned themselves extra homework?" he said sternly, glaring down at them.

"No fair!" the students cried collectively.

" _Alright, hardass too,_ " Jina thought irritably.

Their tentacled teacher suddenly took off from the roof with a cackle, possibly high off the adrenaline. "Where's he going?" Mimura asked.

"We're getting closer to a solution, I can feel it!" Meg said breathlessly, a broad smile on her face. That attempt, for as crazy as it had gone, was the closest they had gotten.

"Keep this up and it's only a matter of time before we've got him!" Isogai added encouragingly.

The students cheered and shattered among themselves, discussing how close they had gotten, ways they could do better, and congratulating one another. For once, Jina's stern expression broke into a small smile.

"So, whaddaya think? Do we have a decent chance?" Kaede asked.

"Oh, yeah, no doubt!" the bluenette answered confidently. "'Least I hope so or it's gonna be a really awkward graduation ceremony."

"We'll just have to get creative," the dirty-blonde added with a smile. It felt good to have a purpose and actually have hope of achieving that purpose, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter done. Honestly, I've been itching to get to episode three, but I knew the first two were important as well, mostly in establishing Jina.


	3. Karma Time

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally, the chapter I've been waiting for! I had this chapter figured out long before the first or second, so I'm excited to finally have it up. I hope I won't lose anyone with it, though. It's pretty long. 
> 
> Also, updates are likely to get irregular from here on out. I had pre-written the first three to keep a consistent upload schedule and hopefully give myself time to write the next chapters, but it didn't exactly pan out with school work and other stories I wanted to write for. So I'm really sorry for that, but I'll do my best to bring new chapters as fast as I can!
> 
> Disclaimer: I do not own Assassination Classroom or Anya Hirabayashi.

"One! Two! Three! Four! Five! Six! Seven! Eight!" the students counted in time with their swings. They were all in formation out behind the school building, or whatever excuse for a yard it was, practicing the basics of knife strokes. Since Karasuma had taken over as gym teacher, they had begun training to properly use their weapons. Up until then, they had just been taking swings and shots as best they could.

"Ah… The sounds of a choreographed exercise regimen echoing across the fields on a golden afternoon," Korosensei sighed blissfully, twirling a yellow daisy in his tendrils. "So peaceful. So militant."

"Make those knives sing," Karasuma commanded, overlooking the students to correct any mistakes they were making in their etiquette. "Treat every move like a legit kill strike." The students' counting faded back in as Karasuma went quiet. "You're in the way here, pal," he said to Korosensei. "Phys Ed is my department now."

The octopus's round head shifted to the ground, his eyes drooping a little. "But… But I'm lonely."

"Find something else to do then, like, I don't know," he threw his thumb over his shoulder, looking disinterested in the octopus's antics. "There's a sandbox. Have a field day."

Korosensei went over the box as instructed. Setting himself down, he began to form a mound of sand while sobbing as streams of tears came out of his eyes. "You don't have to be so insensitive… The kids liked it better when I was their gym coach anyhow," he blubbered petulantly.

The students stopped their drills, and Sugaya sighed, resting his knife against his shoulder. "Yeah, not so much. No offense or anything, it's just when it comes to exercise, you…"

"...set the bar kinda high," Sugino finished for him.

"You wanted us to do line jumps and cats cradle at the same time," Anya reminded the group. Somehow the octopus seemed incapable of understanding that physical activities were a lot more difficult for them than it was for him.

"Like we could keep up with that," Nakamura remarked with a smile, crossing her arms.

"We're human beings, y'know," Sugino chimed in. "I, for one, think our coach should be, too."

Hearing their words, Korosensei let out a whine and he returned to sobbing quietly while playing in the sand. It was a pitiful sight, but they weren't exactly feeling all too sympathetic considering yesterday.

"Right. Back to work, people," Karasuma instructed.

"Can I ask an obvious question, sir?" Maehara asked. "If there's an actual point to this training, should, uh, should we be practicing right in front of our target?"

"Whether killing or studying, it's the same principle. Drill the basics, and they'll serve you well," he answered.

" _Makes sense. The basics are just the foundation to use,_ " the dirty-blonde thought to herself, taking a glance down at her knife. It was actually starting to feel like she knew what she was doing with it instead of just swinging it around at random and hoping for a hit.

"Isogai, Maehara, step up," Karasuma commanded. Both boys came out from the crowd of students up to their teacher. "I want you to try to tag me with those knives."

Both of them stiffened a bit at his order. "Wait. Like as a team?" Isogai questioned uncertainly.

"Do you think that's a good idea?" Maehara added, raising a brow at the suggestion.

"The blades are harmless," Mr. K informed. "They weren't designed to injure human beings." Their teacher reached up for his tie and loosened it. "Tell you what, manage to hit me and you can go home for the day."

Isogai and Maehara exchanged uncertain looks. "Uh, okay," the brunette said uneasily. They both readied themselves, brandishing their knives. "Well, here goes nothing." Isogai lunged forward only to have Karasuma dodge him easily.

"Come on," the teacher taunted in his somber tone. Maehara growled, pulling his knife up before thrusting it at the man. Once he was close, Karasuma grabbed the teen's wrist and pushed him aside lightly, making him stumble. Isogai came back with a wild swing to his teacher's head, which was also avoided with a quick movement. "See that, kids?" Karasuma started, grabbing hold of Maehara's arm to send him back while he dodged another swing from Isogai. "Even with the bare minimum know-how, I can practically dodge their attacks in my sleep." The two students paused their attacks momentarily to reorganize. "They've got no technique."

Both gritted their teeth, grumbling softly at his words. At once, they rushed forward to stab at him together. Once close enough, Karasuma grabbed both their wrists, lifted them up with a grunt, and forced them to the ground with a thud. "If you can't land a hit against a guy like me, you haven't got a prayer against a target whose top speed is Mach Twenty." Their teacher looked to the sandbox.

"See? We've been sparring for half a minute and look." Everyone followed his gaze to see Korosensei, now in green robes, sitting on a blanket with tea in hand next to a sand-replica of Osaka Castle. "He's had time to change clothes, make tea, and build a model of Osaka Castle."

"That is so irritating!" Maehara seethed from the ground, rubbing his sore wrist.

Karasuma offered them both a hand and began to lift them to their feet. "That's why we drill. When the whole class can hit me, you have a shot." He fixed his tie after helping them up. "Do what I tell you as often as I tell you to do it, you'll become assassins." He turned to face the rest of the class. "This isn't recess, kids. From now on, gym class will be about the basics. Stabbing, correct use of firearms, everything you need to succeed."

"Finally," the dirty-blonde sighed with relief. It was what she had been wanting this whole time: to be taught how to use the tools that were given.

"All right. That oughta do it for today," Karasuma announced.

"Thank you, sir!" the class collectively bowed to show respect. The group began to break off into smaller groups to chat. As for Jina, she stood near Anya and Nakamura while the two talked. She wasn't one for talking herself. If she were honest, she wasn't sure when they became friends, but she did know that they had a lot in common and got along well.

The bell chimed distantly, and the groups headed off in the direction of the rundown building. Up ahead, the dirty-blonde could overhear Sugino say something about sixth period's quiz and Nagisa suggest that they be let out after gym. Couldn't argue with that. Gym really should've been last period instead of second to last.

Suddenly, the two in front of her halted. It was only then that she noticed the boy standing at the top of the steps. She felt her heart flutter in her chest and her cheeks went pink when she saw him. He was tall, wore a black blazer instead of the standard school-issued one or cardigan, and had short, red hair that blew with the breeze. He also held a small carton in one hand while the other was in his pocket. "Nagisa. 'Sup," the boy greeted casually. "It's been a while."

The bluenette gasped softly. "Karma… You're back?"

The redhead only smiled in response. She reached up to hold a hand over her chest as she felt the sensation again, but this time much stronger. " _What is this?_ " she panicked internally with wide eyes.

Karma's expression seemed to brighten suddenly as he spied Korosensei in the distance. "Oh, hey," he mumbled, starting down the steps. "That must be the notorious Korosensei." Even though he wasn't paying her so much as a glance, Jina felt herself get nervous as he neared. By the time he passed her by, her heartbeat was so loud she could've sworn her friends could hear it. "Wow. He really does look like an octopus," he said, stopping in front of the tentacled teacher.

"Ah. Mr. Akabane, correct?" Korosensei guessed, holding up a single tendril like how someone would hold up one finger. "I understand your suspension ends today. Welcome back. That said, tardiness is a no-no." His face turned purple with a darker purple x to emphasize his point.

Now she was worried. A suspension was a serious thing and wasn't handed out for just any misdemeanor. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't think of a thing that wasn't at least bad.

The redhead chuckled, "It's kinda tricky getting back into the swing of things. Oh. Feel free to call me by my first name." He pulled his other hand out of his pocket and offered it to his teacher. "Anyway, I've heard some good things, Teach. Nice to meet'cha."

"The pleasure's all mine. Should be a fun and educational year," Korosensei replied, reaching up to shake his new student's hand. The second Karma's hand had wrapped around the tentacle, it made an odd popping sound as it was turned to liquid. The octopus gasped with surprise but had no time to say anything before Karma swung at him with a knife. He dodged the attack easily, putting distance between him and the redhead.

"Ah. You are fast, arent'cha?" Karma chuckled. "And who'da thought these knives actually work? I just cut one up into strips and tacked 'em on. Pretty elementary stuff, chief." His tone had gained a noticeable amount of arrogance compared to just seconds earlier. "I'm disappointed that's all it took to catch you by surprise," the redhead said, holding up his hand to show little strips of the anti-knife taped to his palm.

The dirty-blonde couldn't believe it. He was the first to hurt him, and he had used such a simple and obvious solution! " _Dammit, why didn't I think of that? Hiding the material is the best way to get it close to him! At least I know it doesn't need a lot of pressure to work now._ "

"But good jump. If you don't mind comin' off like a 'fraidy cat," Karma continued, putting his hands in his pockets and casually strolling over to the octopus. "What, are you scared of me?" Korosensei's arm finally regenerated as the new student stalked towards him. "I heard they call you 'Korosensei' 'cause you're s'posed to be unkillable," he stopped right in front of the teacher and leaned in close, leaving just an inch or two between their faces. "Oh, come on. No way you can be this big of a pushover!" Korosensei growled, his skin turning red and veins bulging out of his head at the comment and blow to his pride.

"Hey, Nagisa, what kind of person is this Karma guy?" Jina heard Kayano ask from somewhere off to her right.

"Uh," Nagisa blinked, unsure of where to start first. "He and I were in the same class our first and second year. He was violent, so violent they finally expelled him, shipped him here."

The dirty-blonde blinked, a blank expression on her face as she processed the information she had overheard. " _I've fallen for a psychopath,_ " she thought to herself with a building sense of dread.

"E class is where they send you when they don't know what else to do with you. Thing is, under the circumstances, he may end up a star student," the bluenette went on hopefully. His words weren't directed at her, but they didn't help calm her panicked mind.

"Huh?" Kayano quirked her head to the side confusedly. "What do you mean?"

"Weapons and blood are his passion," Nagisa elaborated while they watched as the redhead made his way back over to the group, twirling the anti-sensei knife in his hand swiftly and impressively, like the use of it was second-nature. "Trust me, if anyone can kill our teacher, it's Karma." Said boy finished his trick show with one last twirl before pocketing it swiftly and expertly.

The more she saw and heard, the more her fear grew. " _As if there wasn't enough going on already. Now, I've got my first crush and he's crazy,_ " Jina whined mentally. Her head was scattered now, and she had no idea what she would do about this.

As the redhead approached and eventually walked past, the dirty-blonde's cheeks turned a little red as the sensation from earlier returned. Despite everything she had heard about him, those feelings wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon.

* * *

After their new addition had shown his true colors, the class had made their way back to the main building, changed, and gotten settled in for sixth period, where Korosensei handed out the quiz. Once finished, he turned himself towards the wall at the front and began punching the wall, slowly but rhythmically, making a soft squishing sound every time it made impact.

There was a collective sigh from the students, who were trying hard to focus on their quiz despite the noise. It wasn't very loud, but it was like someone tapping their foot. It got annoying and distracting very quickly.

"Um… What is he doing?" Mimura whispered to Yada, who sat beside him.

"I dunno. I think he's punching the wall," she answered softly, sounding unsure herself.

"No, you're right," Isogai chimed in from in front of them, turning just a bit to look at them. "Karma's smack-talk seems to have really touched a nerve."

" _Didn't think smack talk would bother someone like him,_ " Jina thought, glancing up from her test for a moment to give the octopus an odd look. " _Then again, no one's been so assertive with him or dealt damage. Karma's the first to do both._ "

"But what's the point of punchin' a wall when his tentacles are too soft to do any damage?" Maehara added in a hushed tone, leaning over his desk to get a better look at what their teacher was doing.

" _Makes you wonder what he used to blow up a chunk of the moon,_ " the dirty-blonde shook her head and attempted to get back to her quiz, but, like earlier, she was finding it difficult to focus with the rhythmic squishing noise. She was starting to get frustrated with it, and she wasn't the only one.

"Okay, that's enough!" Okano suddenly yelled, clearly fed up with the distraction, too. "Could you maybe stop that?! We're trying to take a quiz here!"

"S-Sorry!" the octopus stuttered as he realized the disruption he had been causing his students. "Yes, absolutely."

"You sure you know what you're gettin' yourself into, Karma?" Terasaka asked at the back corner of the class, resting his arm on the back of his chair as he relaxed in it. "The jellyfish is sincerely pissed off at you."

"You can't pay me enough to be in your shoes," Yoshida added with a smirk, looking back at them over his shoulder.

"If I was you, I'd stay at home with my head under a pillow," Muramatsu commented with a mocking grin despite his comment being more derogatory towards himself than the redhead.

" _Guess they're scarred from last time. Not like he can do anything to us. Family, sure, but I doubt he'd do something so extreme over insults,_ " the dirty-blonde concluded, scribbling another answer down.

"'Course he's pissed," the redhead replied. "Who wouldn't be if someone made an attempt on their life?"

" _Maybe the guy who volunteered to be in the line of fire?_ " she thought, a little confused.

"'Less the would-be assassin screwed up and pissed himself in the process," he taunted, sending a look at Terasaka.

The larger boy growled and banged his fist on his desk. "I didn't piss myself! That attitude's gonna get your ass kicked-"

"Quiet, please!" Korosensei shouted, holding up a tendril disapprovingly with a tick mark formed on his forehead from the frustration. "No noise during a quiz!"

" _There's been a ton during this one…_ "

"Continue to talk, and I will assume that you're cheating!" Korosensei went on sternly.

"Sorry, Korosensei, my bad," Karma apologized, not sounding sincere at all. His voice had gained that odd friendliness to it again that made it hard to tell what he'd do next. "No worries, though. I've already finished." The redhead pulled his right hand out from under his desk to reveal a strawberry gelato. "I'm just gonna eat this gelato if that's okay."

"Not so fast! No eating in class!" the octopus yelled, still holding his tendril up to show disapproval. He stared at the dessert for just a moment longer before recognizing it and shouting, "Hey! That's the gelato I brought back from Italy yesterday!"

"Uh-oh," the class muttered collectively, knowing how he got with his sweets.

"Huh?" the redhead looked at Korosensei, seemingly unfazed by his anger and feigning innocence. That seemed to be his schtick. "Sorry. My bad, I just saw it chillin' in the faculty lounge."

"This won't do, young man! I flew through the coldest layer of the stratosphere to keep that delicious treat from melting!" he roared, voice cracking here and there from anger at all his lost effort.

"Yeah? So? Whaddya gonna do about it?" Karma quirked his head to the side a tad, his expression still the same. He intentionally licked the gelato, mocking his teacher without words. "Hit me?" It was more of a dare than a question

"Of course not!" Korosensei put his arm-like tentacles on where his hips would be if he had any. By now his face was red and the tick mark on his forehead was more pronounced. "I'll simply have it back and finish what's left," he said, regaining a bit of composure as he started towards the back of the room, "thank you very much-" He was cut off by a sound similar to that of a balloon popping, and, with a gasp, he looked down to see one of the thicker tentacles he used as legs dissolving into a yellow liquid after coming in contact with one of the BB's spread out on the floor. "Anti-me BB's?!" he cried, quickly dodging Karma's three follow-up shots while avoiding the BB's spread out on the wooden floor.

The redhead laughed, "Wow. That's twice in one day, Teach." Korosensei lifted the damaged tentacle to observe it further, giving a little whimper. Karma stood from his desk, keeping the gun trained on his teacher while he walked toward him. "I'm gonna keep pullin' the same old tricks," he informed.

" _Then you'd be an idiot,_ " the dirty-blonde thought, cringing to herself. " _Letting him know what to expect is the last thing you should be doing. The only reason you've gotten him twice is cause he didn't have your number._ "

"Class'll get interrupted, our grades'll slip. Let's be straight-up, though. If you want this to stop," he paused directly in front of Korosensei and lowered the gun, "you can just kill me or anyone else in this class for that matter." He shoved what was left of the gelato into Korosensei's robes. "You just gotta let go of wanting us to see you as our teacher," he said, grinding the gelato into the robes. The redhead let the cone go, and the treat slipped down, landing on one of the octopus's tentacles. "Give us a taste of your ugly side. Or you can make peace with all this. Accept that I'll be the one to kill you," he hissed, giving him a dangerous look.

The redhead slipped past Korosensei, tossing his test into the air. "Here's my quiz. Easy peasy." He got to the door and paused to look back at the class, specifically his teacher. "Peace out for now, Teach. Whaddya say we play again tomorrow?" With that, he left the classroom unopposed.

" _Of all people it could've been, it had to be him,_ " Jina thought miserably, putting her head in her arms.

* * *

Later that same day, Jina stood beside Nagisa at the station, waving goodbye to Sugino as he departed. The bluenette waved to him as well, calling out, "Bye! Have a good one!"

The dirty-blonde sighed, still debating whether she should ask her friend about the new addition or if it was better to not know more than she already did. Ever since he left the classroom earlier, she had been considering asking Nagisa for more information on him, but really, she wasn't sure if she wanted to know more.

Before she could decide, a voice said loudly behind them, "Are you kiddin' me? Is that actually Nagisa? Look at that guy all cozy with the E Class dumbasses." It was the short, chubby kid named Tanaka, accompanied by the lanky Takada. Both were ugly in personality and appearance, but if you asked her who was worse, she couldn't tell.

Jina couldn't help but groan internally and roll her eyes. The typical spiel from anyone not in E Class. She, and likely anyone else in E class, had heard something similar at least a million times.

"Ew, gross," Takada jumped in, a snobby smirk on his face. "Gotta hand it to him, he's adapted to the crowd he's gonna spend the rest of his life with."

Taking a glance at her friend, Jina noticed the discouraged shadow that had covered his face and glared at the ground. She turned on her heel abruptly, directing her glare onto the two boys behind them. They both were taken aback at the sudden movement and icy sharpness in her stare. "I think he's pretty lucky if he doesn't have to look at your ugly mugs all day," she said in a tone just as cold as her glare, surprising all three.

" _Whoa! I've never seen that look before,_ " the bluenette thought with wide eyes as his jaw dropped. " _And I thought she said she was shy!_ "

"Aren't you that weird girl from C Class?" Tanaka asked, obviously a little put off by the venomous look she was giving him.

"Yeah, she was the one always talking to that ditzy Kurdish girl. Both of 'em got sent to E Class after their grades tanked," Takada answered smugly, regaining a bit of his cocky composure. "Guess fate couldn't bear to tear them apart."

"Hey, did you hear the news?" the shorter of them asked, turning to look at his friend. "Now that his suspension's over, they shoved that Akabane nut over to E Class."

Takada's shoulders tensed, but his expression remained smug. "Ooh! Dude! No kidding? I'd rather be dead than stuck in a classroom with that freak!"

Suddenly, there was the sound of glass shattered as a bottle was slammed up against the pillar behind the two students. Jina's stern expression broke, and the two bullies gasped and cowered away from the redhead. He casually held up the broken half of the bottle by the neck, saying, "Seriously? Because I can help you out with that." He pointed the broken, splintered end at the two boys menacingly. "It'd be messy, but real quick."

"I'd rather live, thanks!" Tanaka answered fearfully, his face now drenched in sweat from fear. "Run away!" With that, the two of them took off with tails tucked between their legs.

As Nagisa started towards him, Jina found herself frozen. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't force herself to approach the redhead. Her expression of shock was quickly taken over by nervousness as she felt herself get self-conscious like earlier. Again, he wasn't paying her any mind, but she still couldn't function properly, not when he was that close.

Karma chuckled, tossing the broken bottle over his shoulder carelessly and directing his attention at the bluenette, "Like I'd actually do anything, right? I'm not gonna risk another suspension with the once-in-a-lifetime deal they're giving me in E Class."

"Uh, hey," Nagisa greeted a bit awkwardly.

"Yeah, hey, Nagisa," he greeted back fluidly. "Is it cool if I pick your brain for a sec?"

The other boy gave him an odd look but nodded anyway. The two of them headed for the terminals, and the dirty-blonde followed after them with some distance between them to listen in. "Word is that you and someone else've been keepin' notes on the octopus," Karma said as he scanned his pass and went through.

"Uh, well. Yeah, kinda I have," he said as he followed him through with Jina right behind him.

"Does he hate that nickname? Us callin' him 'octopus,' I mean?" the taller of them asked, walking forwards. The other two were following, but the pale girl was following with a short distance between her and the redhead.

"Now that you mention it… Whenever he draws himself, it's always as an octopus, and that's the skin he picks for his characters in every video game. And there's this thing he does in the sandbox called an 'octopus trap.' So, no, I don't think he minds at all," the bluenette finally concluded as they came to a stop near the edge of the platform that dropped off to the train tracks. "In fact, it's like his personal avatar or whatever, y'know? He loves it."

"Does he?" Just by the tone of his voice, Jina could tell there was some evil plot forming in his head. "Oh, that's good." Nagisa and the dirty-blonde gave him odd looks as he reached up to cradle his chin in thought. "Oh, this is gonna be friggin' epic."

"I know that look," the bluenette started disapprovingly.

" _He's facing the other way…_ "

"You're cooking up something really dark," the bluenette went on accusingly.

" _How often does he do this sorta stuff?!_ " the pale girl thought to herself, slightly panicked at what might be in store.

"I might be," he admitted. "It's fun, right?" He turned to face them, and they could both see the crazed passion gleaming in his eyes accompanied by a broad, unsettling smile. "I was into this when I thought he was just a monster, but… now that I know what his personality is like…" A train horn blared just before one rushed past on the tracks behind Karma, thrashing his clothes and hair in the wind it created. "I finally get to kill an honest-to-goodness teacher!" He gave a small laugh then another one, this time louder and a little more… mad. "I've been dreaming of this. Ever since my last teacher up and died."

The train finally passed and the rushing wind went with it. Still smirking at his own devious plans, Karma turned and began walking towards the train stop further down, saying, "I'll have to give your notes a look, too, Blondie."

At the mention of her, Jina felt a shiver go down her spine and her face heat up with a blush. Thankfully, the redhead was already a little ways down the platform, so he wouldn't see. " _He just made a big show about how crazy he is! So why am I barely keeping it together when he didn't even say my name?!_ " she groaned internally, resisting the strong urge to bury her burning face in her hands.

* * *

The next morning, the dirty-blonde walked into the classroom accompanied by Anya, carrying on a conversation about one of the manga series they both enjoyed. "Yeah, I think the latest arc is really good-" The brunette cut herself off with a gasp when she saw what was on Korosensei's desk, covering her mouth with her hands out of shock.

Following her friend's gaze, Jina found exactly why. On his desk, there was a red octopus with a kitchen utensil stabbed through its head. Thankfully, the sight wasn't gory, but the octopus was clearly fresh based on its sleek skin and the puddle of slime that stained the desk underneath. She cringed at the sight, finding it just as disgusting and horrifying as Anya did. What was worse, she knew who was behind it. " _The more he does, the more worried I get about my own sanity,_ " she thought as she edged passed the desk, Anya right behind her.

The two made it to the end row and went to the back to take their seats among the rest of the class. It was unusually quiet, no doubt due to the shock every student received once they entered the room, and everyone stared down at their desks or the floor or anywhere other than the dead octopus at the front.

Though Anya only had a hunch, she was pretty sure she knew who had planted a dead octopus on their teacher's desk. Her eyes landed on the redhead, who sat at his desk with a devious look on his face.

The brunette sighed, leaning over to her friend. "We've seriously got to talk about your taste in men," she whispered in Jina's ear before returning to her seated position with an exasperated look on her face. She had been so excited to tease her but hadn't gotten the chance yesterday. Now, she was more concerned for her friend than anything.

Her pale face flushed suddenly, and her eyes widened as she turned abruptly to her friend. "What?! It's not-" her whisper-shout was cut off when the door slid open and their teacher slithered in.

"Good morning, boys and girls!" he greeted brightly, looking over the class. The students were quiet in return, a few of them sighing and waiting for whatever would happen when he noticed what was sitting on his desk. "Uh? Why the long faces?" their tentacled teacher asked with a curious tilt of his head, clearly confused by the downbeat demeanor of his usually bright students. "Has something-" He stopped abruptly when his eyes landed on the grotesque sight of the stabbed octopus.

"Oops! That's on me," Karma spoke up from the back, his smirk etched onto his face. "Yeah, totally thought it was you, innocent mistake." He leaned to the side some to be seen better. "I stabbed it, so I s'pose I should get rid of it?"

Korosensei sighed, reaching over to pick up the corpse. "Yes, you should," he agreed grimly, beginning to slither to the back with the octopus in hand.

Looking closer, Jina noticed his right arm behind his back. " _He's got a gun or knife. Not that it matters which._ "

The octopus suddenly halted and raised newly sprouted tentacles as the ends turned into whirring drills, much to the redhead's confusion. He rocketed off suddenly and was back just a second later with a missile wrapped in his main tentacles, a bowl in one of the smaller extras, the dead octopus also in some of the temporary arms, and various other ingredients held above him with more additional tentacles. "Observe, if you will, Karma m'boy, the versatility of these tentacles, and the firepower of this missile yoinked from the Self Defense Force!" The end of the weapon came alive with fire meant to propel it as if to emphasize his statement. He got to work preparing and pouring the various ingredients into the mixing bowl, all the while being illuminated ominously by the missile's fire, and within a second or two, he was using the flame to bake whatever he was making. "If you think I'm going to let the new kid get away with murder, think again."

Suddenly, he was finished and a takoyaki was placed in Karma's mouth. He spit it out as soon as it was in, covering his mouth with his wrist afterward and staring at the octopus with surprise. "Don't you know breakfast is the most important meal of the day?" he asked, holding up a plate of steaming takoyaki. "Your complexion tells me you haven't eaten." One of the tentacles reached up and stuck the pointed drill-like end into one of the octopus balls. "So, please, help yourself to some of this delicious takoyaki. I insist," he offered the takoyaki on the end of his tentacle, his tone dripping with smugness.

Still covering his mouth, the redhead's expression hardened into a glare.

" _What a shock. Your target knew what to expect from you and countered you easily,_ " Jina thought flatly, her expression matching the tone in her head. " _Not sure what he expected when he gave away the information for free._ "

"You see. I'm a giver… I take care of things," the octopus went on, still offering the takoyaki. "Hungry students, would-be-assassins, troubled teens." The last one was emphasized with a suggestive tone.

" _Troubled is putting it lightly…_ "

"Every attempt on my life is an opportunity for me to play my part," he said, opening his mouth to reveal many more steaming takoyaki. "So, by all means, keep at it." By now, Karma had removed his hand to show something like a frustrated smile. "By the end of the day, if your body and mind aren't aglow with health and knowledge, I haven't done my job," he said finally, his tentacles undulating as he finished his speech.

After that little show, class began as normal. First was math, and currently, they were moving into indivisible equations. Korosensei wrote up an example equation, writing the steps normally taken to solve it and notes to the side to clear any confusion. "As you can see, whatever we do, this number remains," he pointed out while he scratched the results on the board. "Now, I know the concept of indivisibility is a beast. But, if its fangs frighten you, I have a surefire method for taming it."

Jina had taken care to write down his notes exactly as they were on the board. Even though math wasn't a struggle of hers, she felt it was worth it to have the notes available to look over.

"See if you can get the gist as I write it out on the board." Before he could begin, there was the signature sound of Korosensei's tentacle whipping through the air at high speeds. He turned his head to look at the class. "Karma," he held up the air-pistol between his tendrils, letting it hang. "It takes an anti-me BB far too long to reach its mark."

Said student gasped, noticing the gun he had aimed had been snatched from his hand without him even noticing.

"I had time on my hands," he held up bunches of grooming products. "Hope you don't mind if I prettified yours." Karma's face pulled into another tight, angry smile as he growled and held up his hand to find his nails painted and topped with nail stickers of either octopus or takoyaki. It wasn't clear if he was pissed about his attempt failing or being humiliated in front of the class. Either would've been a blow to his obvious ego.

" _Wow, he tried again just a few minutes after he failed,_ " the dirty-blonde thought, sweat-dropping.

That wasn't the last attempt the redhead made nor the last time it ended with Korosensei mortifying him. Fourth was Home Ec and when Karma attempted to knock over a pot of soup as a distraction for his assassination, their tentacled teacher simply sucked the soup from the air and injected it back into the pot, putting a frilly, pink apron on the perpetrator while he was at it.

Fifth was Japanese. Korosensei walked around the classroom, reading a short story aloud, and once he got close enough to Karma's desk, the redhead attempted to pull his knife from inside his sleeve. But the octopus put an end to the attempt quickly by pressing a tentacle to his forehead and hand. As payback, he took out a comb and began to brush through it, while reading off a line about a red frog who had failed yet again and that the main character was getting bored of it. After that, he appeared to be at a complete loss, totally different from his attitude yesterday, and his attacks stopped. In fact, he disappeared altogether after fifth, which got her worried. Sure, she hadn't and probably couldn't speak to him without clamming up, but she couldn't help but be concerned after seeing the toll the losses had taken.

After fifth, the attacks stopped and the day went as normal uninterrupted. Honestly, it worried her a little. He looked completely at a loss for what to do after his attempt in fifth, and the quietness and lack of his usual mannerisms only made it more obvious that the losses were taking a toll. He disappeared sometime during PE and didn't show back up for seventh period.

So, once the final bell of the day had rung, Jina packed her things quickly and went for Nagisa's desk. The bluenette was still in the middle of putting his things away when she came up behind him and asked, "Hey, d'you know where he went?"

He jumped at the suddenness of her appearance, nearly dropping his notebook. He gathered himself and blinked at her for a moment before it clicked. "Oh! Karma! Yeah, I've got an idea of where he's at," he replied, putting the last of his things into his bag. "I was gonna go check, and see if I could convince him to stop." He stood from his desk, bag slung over his shoulder. "You can come with me if you want."

"Um… Yeah, sure," she nodded, a tad reluctant. As much as she didn't want him to notice her before she could sort out her feelings, there was another part of her that was worried.

The bluenette raised a brow at the pause, already having an idea of why, but chose to ignore it for now. Leaving the building, they took a right straight into the forest with Nagisa leading the way. "It's not that far, but it'll be a few minutes," he mentioned, moving a low-hanging branch so he could pass. "So, what do you think of Karma?"

The dirty-blonde blushed lightly at the question, or more so the ideas that came to mind when he asked. She didn't want to even think them, let alone say them out loud. "I mean… I think he's smart but dumb at the same time if that makes any sense," she answered honestly.

Nagisa chuckled, sweat-dropping. "Yeah, I guess I get that. He did swarm Korosensei with constant attacks and thought they'd work like yesterday."

"Not just that, but he told Korosensei what to expect, too," she pointed out, stepping over a large fallen limb. "Who tells their target what their plan is? Strategy is key here, and he gave his away for free."

"Yeah, you're right," the bluenette's expression hardened with thought. "But I guess you could blame his ego for that. And I know after today it's probably pretty banged up."

They came out of the forest into a clearing, and up ahead, they could see the edge of a cliff. Now that the trees weren't blocking the view, they could see the sky was grey with clouds and a light breeze had started, ruffling their hair. A single, thick branch had sprouted from the cliff edge, and the redhead was sitting at the very base of it, back facing towards them, much to Jina's shock. A pit formed in her stomach as they came to a stop a short distance away. From what she could tell, he was hunched over biting the nail of his pointer finger while deep in thought, no doubt wracking his brain for any more ideas.

"C'mon, man. I'm tellin' ya not to sweat it," Nagisa started, seeing his friend's disposition. "We'll do it together as a group. You could have the sneakiest, most foolproof plan in the world ready to go, but if Korosensei's got his eye on you, forget it. He's not like other teachers."

" _Right. He might've blown up the moon, but he's the only teacher here who's treated me like a person instead of a trophy,_ " she thought, wanting to say it out loud but not finding it in her to do so.

"Other teachers, huh?" he said darkly, pulling his hand away. "No." He fell silent for a moment after that, staring out at the forest and parts of the main campus visible from the cliff. "You don't understand," he straightened up finally. "I wanna do it on my own. Let me ask you, would it tick you off to die in some random place?"

Jina's eyes widened and she flicked her gaze over to Nagisa. All sorts of alarm bells had gone off in her head after that question, but before she could act or Nagisa could process the question, a certain voice teased, "Oh, Karma?" All three turned around to see Korosensei slithering up the same path Nagisa and Jina had taken. "I feel I've taken exceptionally good care of you today." His face gained green stripes, showing his arrogance. "Keep trying to kill me if that tickles your fancy," he held up one of his main tentacles, rubbing the tendrils together. "I certainly don't get tired of spiffing you up."

Despite what she thought, the redhead only smiled in return, giving a quiet hum, before he stood up. Looking at him out of the corner of her eye, her gaze was locked on him and her body tense from how badly the anxiety increased now that he was standing on the thick branch. "Just so we're on the same page here. You pretty much consider yourself a teacher above all else?"

"That's right," he gave a curt nod.

"Cool. And you wouldn't think twice about putting your life on the line to save a student?" The dirty-blonde bit her lip, anticipating the worst. That look on his face told her he was planning something, and she was almost sure she knew what it was.

"What sort of teacher would I be if I did?" he answered.

"That's awesome. Good to know," he pulled his gun from the inside of his blazer. "So I can kill you," he said as he let himself fall back and over the edge, much to Jina and Nagisa's horror.

Both gasped, racing for the edge to see their classmate plummeting to the bottom, still aiming his gun up and prepared to shoot once Korosensei was in range. "What the hell is he thinking?! He's gonna die no matter what happens!" she panicked aloud.

They didn't have to worry for very long. As he approached the trees, Korosensei's tentacle shot past him and sprung out into a yellow spider web. The web dipped down as he landed on it, and Korosensei appeared under the web. Both gave a sigh of relief and let themselves relax. The last few seconds had felt like an eternity. "Nagisa, what is with you and your friends trying to be suicide assassins?" the dirty-blonde asked dryly, earning a nervous chuckle from the other.

After a moment, Korosensei and Karma arrived back up on the cliff. By now, the clouds had gone away to let the sunset shine through. "I don't get it. How were you so calm the whole time?" the bluenette asked, peering over the edge of the cliff on his hands and knees.

" _Says the one who walked up to Korosensei so casually with a bomb strapped to him_ ," Jina stared at him flatly from beside him.

"Meh. No big," Karma answered disinterestedly from his spot on the ground a ways away from the other two. "What really sucks is that was my best bet. Nothin' else I can come up with even touches it."

"Aw! Run out of ideas already?" Korosensei said in mock disappointment, holding up various hygiene and beauty items with a deviously large smile on his face. "But I have an entire beauty regimen lined up just for you! 'C'mon. No way you can be this big of a pushover!'" he mocked, doing some sort of nasally voice that she guessed was meant to be an impression of him.

The redhead grimaced at the teasing. He was usually the one teasing, not the one receiving. A sudden small smile came to his face as he stood slowly. "No worries, Teach. You're still dead meat," he replied confidently, slicing his finger across his neck like he was cutting off his head.

Korosensei's head turned a red-ish orange with a darker red circle, indicating his approval. "That's the spirit! Never give up! Seems my tender loving care has paid off."

"Welp. Let's head back, Nagisa," the redhead said as he passed by Korosensei, tossing something up in the air and catching it casually.

" _Oh, thank goodness. I don't exist to him,_ " the pale girl thought as she sighed quietly with relief.

"We can grab some food on the way," he mentioned, catching the object again.

Korosensei suddenly yelled when he spied the object. "Excuse me! That's my purse!"

Karma stopped and turned to look at him. "C'mon, teach. You've gotta stop leaving stuff unattended in the faculty lounge."

"Give it back!" he demanded, voice going higher in pitch from hysteria.

Surprisingly, Karma gave it up without any resistance. "Here ya go," he said, tossing it back to the octopus.

He clumsily caught the purse in his tendrils, quickly undoing the snap on it while muttering desperately, "Gimme-gimme-gimme!" He peered inside only to find its contents missing. "Uh, hey, uh, this is, uh, empty!" he said, slightly panicked, as he turned the purse over to show it was entirely cleared of any yen.

The boy turned around again, that wry smile on his face. "There wasn't much there to begin with. Call it a donation," he shrugged.

The octopus's tendrils grasped at his head as he let out another yell. "A donation? A donation?!" Korosensei began to berate Karma angrily, emphasizing his points with gestures from his tentacles. The redhead only smiled and laughed, which only spurred his anger. Eventually, he gave the yen back after he had had his fun with Korosensei, and the group of three began heading back to the school to grab their things. Jina still kept her distance from the redhead of course, but not enough for it to be noticeable.

Before long, they were back at the rundown school building. As Jina picked up her bag from the front steps of the building and shouldered it, Nagisa asked, "Hey, wanna walk down the mountain with us?"

The dirty-blonde turned to look at the pair, and her eyes widened a tad when she realized the redhead was looking at her, that ever-present smirk on his face. "Yeah," he chimed in, reaching to fold his arms behind his head. "It'll be a good opportunity for you to tell me whatever you've got on the octopus."

Her grip on her bag strap tightened considerably, and her body went stiff. Why? She had been managing it okay, but why was that feeling coming back tenfold all of a sudden? Then it dawned on her: this was the first time he had directly acknowledged her. For the past two days, she basically didn't exist to him. "U-Um," she stuttered, feeling her face warm with a hard blush and turning her gaze to the ground. "I, uh, actually wanted to, um, ask Mr. Karasuma some questions. M-maybe next time!" Before either could question her odd behavior, she had quickly gone inside the front doors, leaving them both to stare and sweatdrop.

Inside, Jina walked briskly down the hallway and entered the bathrooms. Dropping her bag, she pressed her back to the wall and sunk to the floor, face completely red. She sat there for a minute, not moving, and just collected herself. Finally, she sighed and looked up to the ceiling with a slightly less red face. No matter how hard she tried, she couldn't think of a way to get rid of these stupid feelings or at the very least keep herself composed around him. Even if she did plan something, she was sure it wouldn't work like she wanted it to. After all, just a glance from him had basically turned her to jelly.

A few more minutes of gathering herself, and she was leaving the bathroom, bag slung over her shoulder with her usual neutral expression and pale complexion. Just as she got down the steps and onto the barely visible beaten path, a voice stopped her, "I'm sorry to bother you, Jina, but may I have a word with you?" She turned around to find Korosensei slithering out the main doors. "I meant to talk with you sooner, but that boy is a handful."

"Sure, I guess," she said, turning around fully to face him. The dirty-blonde didn't have a clue what he wanted to talk about. As far as she knew, her grades were fine. In fact, they weren't exactly the kind of grades you'd expect from someone in 3-E, and she didn't disrupt class.

Suddenly, the octopus disappeared from his spot, kicking up a sudden breeze as he went, and reappeared behind the girl. His expression was rather devious-looking as he giggled like a school-girl, "You have a crush on Karma, don't you?"

Jina squeaked, blushing again at the accusation, and turned on her heel to back away. "I-I don't!" she denied, shaking her head furiously.

Korosensei giggled, his eyes narrowing a bit and making his expression look more devious in the process. "Come now! It's a good thing! Nothing to be ashamed of," he insisted. "You should be proud! It's the first crush of my teaching career," he added with another giggle. A scheming glint came to his eyes. "I may just have to give you both a little push."

Gritting her teeth and trying to ignore the intense heat she felt in her face, she took a wild stab at him, yelling, "Don't you dare!"

He dodged the lousy attack with ease, giggling once he was a safe few feet away. "What a generic attack! With bad form to boot!" Jina bared her teeth, glaring down at the ground for the jab. "I have to say, I expected something more creative from you given what you've shown in English." Her expression softened just a bit, almost like she was more disappointed in herself than angry at him now. "Alright, let's not get discouraged," he put a reassuring tentacle on her shoulder. "I know you're talented, there's no doubt about that. Just make sure to put it to use. Give me an assassination attempt that's full of innovation!" The dirty-blonde didn't say anything, keeping her gaze to the ground with her neutral expression returning. "Until then, I'll have fun playing match-maker!"

Jina's expression promptly turned angry again at his last sentence, but before she could do anything, her teacher had rocketed off into the air. "Why does this year get harder every day?!" she groaned, running her hands through her hair as she anticipated what sort of hell she was in for now that he was in the mix.

* * *

Further down the beaten mountain path, Nagisa and Karma walked in relative silence besides the occasional noises of nature. "Hey, got any idea what that was about?" he finally asked, looking to Nagisa curiously.

"Huh? You mean with Jina?" The redhead nodded. "No, I don't really have a clue." That was a lie. He was almost sure he knew the answer, but for the sake of his friend, he wouldn't say.

"She ever acted like that before?" he went on, looking mildly interested.

"Not that I've seen," the bluenette shook his head. "I mean, she's not the most talkative or social, but she's getting better about it. Still, I can't think of a time when she reacted like that to anyone, even when she was a lot more reserved."

Karma hummed, thinking it over with a smile. He had two ideas: Either she was terrified of him because of the reputation he had, or she liked him. He was a lot more interested in one of those than the other. "This year's gonna be pretty fun," he said, smiling deviously.

" _And now Jina's his new teasing target,_ " the bluenette thought, already feeling sympathy for the girl.


End file.
